Tell Me Twenty-One Lies
by Fuzzball457
Summary: When someone breaks into Thor's apartment in the middle of the night, he doesn't expect to find his wayward criminal brother. You know, the one who was supposed to be in prison. *AU - human/modern setting
1. Chapter 1

**Holy moly I finally completed a Thor story to post! I'm actually kind of proud of this little guy, which is an unusual feeling for me! The second chapter/epilogue is complete, but it needs a little tweaking so it should be up in a week or two.**

 **There are a few dark themes in here, so check the end notes if you're concerned about any triggers. Please take care of yourself!**

 **Title is from Make Me Cry by Noah Cyrus ft. Labrinth. I don't own the song or MCU/Thor.**

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 **Tell Me Twenty-One Lies**

Thor blinked until the dark room came into focus. He wasn't sure what had awoken him, but the dull grey light filtering in through the curtains told him there was no natural reason to be up this early. It was too early for even the earliest early birds and too late for even the latest night owls.

A halted squeak, as if the noise-maker realized only too late they had stepped on that one squeaky board near the sink, sounded from down the hall.

 _Ah_ , Thor thought as he bolted up, heart hammering painfully, _that must be it._

His mind darted around the room, trying to find a weapon. He wasn't prepared, but to be fair, the borderline rural suburbs of a small tourist town were hardly the deep ghetto.

 _Always be thinking three steps ahead, my boy_ , the voice of his father reminded him. A cutting edge and, to some, a cut throat business man, Odin had always been a master strategist, able to read and predict people like the back of his hand. Not unlike Thor's brother, Loki, who was also quite gifted at reading people, though he'd hiss and spit and deny even the nicest of compliments if it suggested he was anything like their father. _Your father_ , Loki would snarl.

The reveal of Loki's adoption has been bitterly painful for Thor, but not at all in the same way as it was for Loki. It was a deep blow to Thor's trust of their father, though he had eventually seen, mostly due to his mother's tearful explanations, how it had all come to pass. Wanting Loki to feel part of the family and so waiting, waiting forever until it was too late to tell him. It hadn't helped that Loki had come across the information while snooping through Odin's files for something else. Thor never found out what he was looking for. It didn't exactly come up when Loki, tears streaming down his pale face, eyes full of betrayal, had burst into the living room waving papers around and screaming at Odin.

It wasn't just about the secret for Loki, though, oh boy no. It was proof, he had hollered at Thor later that night as he shoved random clothes and personal affects into a suitcase. Proof that he had always been unloved, that they had all been playing some great cosmic joke on him. Proof, proof, proof, it was all he seemed capable of saying.

It took Thor a long time, longer than he'd care to admit, to realize that 'proof' meant confirmation. That Loki, for longer than Thor cared to think about, had already thought himself an outsider, an unloved black sheep. But that revelation came later, a painful shot in the gut one night. When he walked in on Loki abruptly packing, unaware of the dangerous precipice he was standing on, unware that he would possibly never see his brother again…the only thought of comfort he could offer that night was 'so what?'. It didn't matter to Thor, Loki was still his brother, his family, his best friend. So what if they weren't blood? They'd get over the lie eventually; they could do it together.

But Loki had not taken his sage advice so well.

"So what?" he had snarled at decibels Thor thought humanly impossible. "SO WHAT? And all along I thought you the fool, but really it was me! Bumbling after you, always in the shadow, blissfully unaware. How could I have lived in such ignorance?" Clothes and books were slammed viciously into his suitcase, which bounced on the bed from the force. "How could I be so _blind_?"

"But—"

" _Get out!"_ And Thor may have been a fool, but he knew when it was best for one's personal safety to leave Loki alone. He just hadn't realized when the door slammed in his face, it would be for the last time. He'd retreated, confused and angry, to his bedroom to wait until Loki burned himself out. Yet when he finally swallowed his pride an hour later and went to his brother's room, it was to just that, a room, empty and devoid of any personal touches. Posters were torn from the wall and shoved unceremoniously into the trash, the usually impeccably made sheets were in a pile on the floor, and hangers littered the ground in front of the closet, door at half-mast and clothes half gone.

It was not for lack of trying that Loki had slipped so thoroughly out of his life. Two years after Loki had disappeared into the rainy night and one year after Thor got his own place outside of town, Odin called him, grave and disappointed. Prison, he said. Loki had been arrested on charges of breaking and entering, pleading guilty and avoiding a trail. The very next day, and every few months after that, Thor had driven down to Wellshem State Prison, an imposing grey monstrosity an hour away, and every time he'd been turned away. Prisoners may be without the right to eat when they choose or come and go as they choose, but they still had the right to refuse to see visitors, apparently. And even if it was less of a surprise each time the guard told him he'd been rebuffed, it was no less of a pain in his heart. He'd considered writing, but his words only felt weak and unsatisfactory each time he'd tried to put his thoughts to paper.

Was this what that poor innocent person had felt like, Thor wondered as he finally pulled out a heavy Maglite flashlight and held it aloft as a weapon. Whoever's house Loki had broken into, armed with a knife the police had said – did they feel this fear? Did Loki make them fear for their lives? Would he have actually harmed them? Thor wanted with all of his heart to protest, no of course not, Loki would never, but the reality was he didn't know. He didn't know Loki anymore, didn't know what he was capable of after two years on his own. Maybe he'd just been looking to steal a few things, maybe he'd been ready for a fight. Maybe he'd _wanted_ a fight. How could Loki, his beautiful, quiet, smart little brother, who so loved the smell of fresh cut grass and an early morning walk – how could he ever violate someone in this way?

It was too much for Thor to think about as he crept down the hall. He'd sit with it later, when his blood wasn't pounding so much through his ears.

There – in the kitchen, a rustling noise. Things shifting in a cabinet, a bit of water running…It wasn't like those moments when Thor got up in the night and had to remind himself there was no monster hiding in the bathroom. When he turned the corner now there was absolutely a one hundred percent chance that there was a person in there, likely willing to do him seriously bodily harm. He had no 'it's all in your imagination' comforts to offer himself. His cell phone was plugged in on the little table by the front door. Help was on the other side of the kitchen. He'd have to rethink that idea in the future and all the 'no technology in the bedroom' hippies could be damned because no 'best sleep of your life' was worth not having a phone within easy reach.

Taking a deep breath, Thor flung himself around the corner with a battle cry and flicked on the light with one hand while the other prepared to bring his Maglite down with every inch of ferocity he could summon.

"Graceful as ever, I see."

The flashlight made an obnoxiously loud thud as Thor numbly dropped it onto his stupid plastic kitchen table.

Loki leaned against the kitchen sink, looking entirely unruffled by Thor's maladroit entrance, and gave Thor a visual once over. The cabinet under the sink was open and several of Thor's cleaning supplies and first aid materials were spread across the floor. What he was doing in that cabinet, Thor could scarcely begin to guess. Though Loki's motives had often eluded Thor in even the most obvious of situations, so he stood little chance now.

Loki himself looked worse and worse the longer Thor stared at him. The kitchen light, a circline bulb that was out on the side closest to Loki, was undoubtedly doing him no favors and the bleak morning light coming in from the window behind him only served to make him look sallow. Nonetheless, Thor was certain the already willowy body was thinner than usual and he was fairly certain there was a faint tremble in his knees, like just standing was too exhausting. The black skinny jeans and deep green zip-up hoodie were so reminiscent of something Loki - _his_ Loki, the scrappy, bookish kid he'd grown up with - would have worn, that it felt like stepping through a time portal. Suddenly they were teenagers again, one catching the other sneaking in late and being sworn into silence. It was so painfully familiar Thor almost wanted to make a curfew joke.

But, he realized as Loki sneered at his dumbfounded silence, that this was very much not the same.

"Loki," he said dumbly, trying to buy time to form a coherent thought. "You're…here."

"How astute." For all his scathing commentary, Loki looked intensely uncomfortable (it was another recent revelation that Loki's words, eloquent as they were, rarely bellied his emotions). It went beyond being out of place in Thor's small but homely kitchen and into the realm of painful. Loki wasn't cowering per say, but he was scrunched in on himself, as if trying to appear as small as possible. His thin arms were wrapped around his chest and he seemed to shrink a little bit with each passing second as though his natural state was curled in a ball.

But there was a more pressing problem forming in his mind. "But you're here," he repeated, because words had never been his strong suit and he thought best when he could vocalize his ideas as they formed. Loki seemed to physically resist the pull to roll his eyes. "Aren't you supposed to…I mean, weren't you…how…" He didn't know how to make it the least awkward. Genuine or not, Loki could find personal insult in the most benign of statements and feather ruffling was hardly what the situation called for. Delicacy was not his strong suit, but he forced himself to slow down and speak cautiously, as Loki had always tried to teach him (unsuccessfully) as a teenager. "I thought you were in prison?" he asked, trying to sound conversational and trying to make his real question, whether Loki's release had been legally sanctioned or not, as unheard as possible.

Because Thor was very, very certain that Loki had seven more months on his original sentence. It was marked on his calendar in red with a large circle around it in the hopes Loki would be desperate enough for a ride and a place to stay that he would put up with Thor showing up at his release.

This time Loki did roll his eyes, but he remained where he was, seemingly content to be interrogated. "Calm down, I was released early. No need for a moral crisis. You won't have to call the police."

Thor immediately went to deny it, to swear that he would never turn Loki in, but he forced himself to stop. _Speak thoughtfully_ , as Loki had once snapped at him after a long winded ramble. Empty promises were of no use now. Their relationship, whatever still existed of it, was tenuous and words had to be backed up by action. This, for all the familiar snark and sarcasm, was not the same seventeen year old who had stormed out of their house. Brother or not, Loki was a criminal. It was painful to think, but it was possible Loki was a danger to others, maybe especially if he was fresh out of prison. Thor couldn't promise that he wouldn't have called the cops eventually.

"But how?" he asked instead.

"Early release for _good behavior._ " He examined his nails while he said it, picking under them with his thumb nail.

It was difficult to decide if Thor believed him or not. He could certainly picture Loki keeping to himself, reading most of the time probably, and presenting as a model prisoner. But it also seemed doubtful, in such a high concentration of easily wounded male egos that Loki had managed to avoid pissing anyone off. He wasn't one to pick a fight, but it took very little provocation for him to verbally eviscerate someone.

"It's minimum security," he said insipidly. "Mostly pot dealers. It wasn't fucking Guantanamo, Thor. It's overcrowded. People aren't beating the shit out of each other all over the place." He sniffed and went back to his nails. "Mostly, it's boring. Same fucking routine every damn day. And the collective intelligence there, even from the guards…let's just say, I was sorely lacking decent, intellectual conversation. But my point is, there's not riots and shank-ings and shit like that. Most people get out early."

"But…" Thor frowned, emotions caught somewhere between anger and hurt. "Why didn't you tell us? Tell mom?"

 _Why didn't you tell me?_

Loki let out some horrible facsimile of a laugh. Thor hated that sound. It was so sharp, so mocking. _Isn't it obvious?_ that laugh said. It was such a twisted sound and not one that Thor ever wanted to hear out of his little brother's mouth.

"Yes, because I'm sure you would all be just so thrilled to hear that delinquent _mistake_ you brought into the family is back."

Thor growled. There was simply no way Loki thought that to be true. If nothing else, Loki had to know their mother loved him and Thor knew that Loki had always held her in the fondest of terms, perhaps even above Thor himself. Thor also knew, better than most, just how good Loki was at casting himself as the victim, finding slight in even the most casual of remarks. Even if Thor hadn't always been the nicest – and sometimes thoughts of his foolish younger self plagued him at night – he had never not wanted Loki as a brother. Perhaps his isolation had damaged Loki more than either of them had realized if he truly believed Thor and Frigga would be happier if he just remained absent.

When would Loki learn he was only hurting everyone more, himself included, when he did this?

And yet, Thor couldn't help but think, Loki was here. Perhaps he told himself he had no other options, but he had willing brought himself back to Thor's attention.

Jerking forward to grab his fool of a brother and shake some damn sense in him, he snapped, "Loki, you know-" but he stopped in his tracks as Loki shied back instinctively then hissed and curled in on himself.

The shift in Loki's position reflected the overhead light off a wet patch on Loki's dark green sweatshirt. But it wasn't until Loki's forearm, which was pressed against the spot defensively, shifted just so, that Thor could see the red smears along his arm. "You're hurt!" It made sense then why Loki was rummaging through the kitchen cabinets, why the first aid kid was strewn across the floor.

Everything else suddenly didn't matter.

Loki, however, did not see it that way.

"Stop!" he hissed, pressing even further back into the sink to avoid Thor's worried grasp. The movement clearly cost him, as he began to pant slightly and the arm pressed across his stomach began to shake.

"Loki, you're hurt!" he repeated, entirely confused why this was not the very first sentence out of Loki's mouth when Thor had walked into the room. Did he think Thor didn't care? Was he truly hoping to break into Thor's home, fix himself with Band-Aids when he clearly needed serious medical attention, and disappear back into the night without so much as a hello?

"It's fine, Thor, just a scratch." But the small beads of sweat building at his hairline said otherwise. "You're so predictable," he continued with a glance at the first aid kit, "under the sink. Just like Mom. When are you ever going to grow up?"

"Please," Thor said, switching tactics. Clearly the overbearing brother routine, genuine though it may be, wasn't going to work. "Just let me have a look. I can help you clean and bandage it and then…then you can go." It hurt to say, to even suggest he was willing to let Loki slip out of his life yet again, but there were more serious issues at play. "That's what you came here for, right? Help?"

"Not your help," he snapped.

 _Then why did you come_ _ **here**_ _?_ But he didn't ask. He was learning that Loki didn't always appreciate the truth and perhaps it was truly wiser to keep his mouth shut on occasion.

"Be that as it may," he offered instead, "I'm all you've got at the moment."

Loki stared blankly, entirely unmoved, and Thor began to worry he might try to make a break for it, possibly wounding himself further in the process. But desperation and pain began to win out (Thor wasn't foolish enough to think his own pleas had any sway) because Loki's eyes finally narrowed, a sure sign he was unhappy with the realizations he was coming to. "Fine, but no silly dramatics or sentimentality. I'm only here because I have to be."

Thor nodded, ever the eager puppy, and directed Loki to one of the kitchen chairs. He barely stopped himself from assisting Loki over to it, instead allowing his hands to ghost over the bony shoulders while their owner shot him fierce warning glances.

He forced himself to turn to the scattered supplies while Loki settled into his seat with thinly veiled hisses and gasps. Hopefully it was only something superficial because Thor was painfully inept at anything requiring more than a Band-Aid and he likely stood zero chance of getting Loki to go to a hospital.

"Okay," he offered, overly peppy and aggressively cheerful, as he spread the supplies – mostly gauze in different shapes and sizes – out on the table and turned to his brother. Loki appeared to be stuck mid-attempt in raising the bottom of his hoodie. His hands were frozen and shaking no small amount while his eyes were crunched closed. His breath was coming in small bursts through a tiny gap in his pursed lips.

"Jesus, Loki," he mumbled, contemplating if he could somehow restrain the younger man long enough for him to call an ambulance. He couldn't recall ever seeing Loki in such pain.

A pathetic little, "No," ghosted past Loki's lips as Thor stepped closer.

"Let me help," he insisted, ducking low and staring hard until Loki opened his eyes and met Thor's gaze. His earlier pallor looked positively lively compared to the greyish hue he'd taken on. Not good, Thor couldn't help but think. Not good at all. "Loki," he hissed until the other man finally looked away, the closest he'd get to acquiescence. He took the bird-like – and _freezing_ , holy shit – hands and gently moved them aside without resistance.

"Okay," he said again, this time with much more seriousness. There was no point in fake cheer now. Loki sat rigidly, the only sign of his consciousness as he'd once again closed his eyes. Thor suspected **Loki had already thoroughly assessed the seriousness of the wound and likely knew exactly what kind of medical attention was ideal.**

Instead of repeating Loki's lifting attempt, Thor started at the top and unzipped the hoodie, which was unmarked, other than the bloodstain. Just as he'd expected, it was Loki's t-shirt underneath – dark tan with some band logo – that was ripped up. Thor took only a moment to consider the implications of Loki taking the time to zip up his hoodie, _to hide the wound_ , before sneaking here to get help. Of course he wouldn't just stumble along screaming for help until someone found him, of course he'd try to make sure no passerbys could help him.

But that could be addressed later.

No dramatics and no sentimentality. Right.

The blood was partially congealed, making the shirt sticky and difficult to pull up, but he managed it slowly by dabbing a wet cloth against it. Loki said nothing but began to tremble slightly from the effort of remaining so rigid.

They couldn't go on like this. Loki was only causing himself more pain by spending so much effort resisting.

"Can I ask you a question?" he offered in what he hoped passed for a neutral tone.

"No," Loki snapped immediately.

"It's just that…I never got to ask you: why?" Because you always turned me away at the gates, he didn't add. The whole thing had happened so fast, with Loki pleading no contest, there was no trial, and he was in prison by the time Thor even got the call saying something was wrong.

Loki's eyes flew open to glare at him. "I said no—"

"You need a distraction," Thor fired back, looking up from where he was making slow progress disentangling the fraying fabric from the wound.

"I don't need _anything_ from you."

"Fine," Thor barked, unintentionally tugging the shirt piece up harder than necessary. A small wave of guilt washed over him as Loki choked out a small cry. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to," he mumbled quickly. When would he learn fighting with Loki never got anyone anywhere? He couldn't bring himself to ask again, however, so he returned to his work.

The shirt, save a few strings, was nearly fully removed, and, thankfully, the wound looked to be long, but not overly deep. It could probably do with a few stitches but gauze would heal it sufficiently, if not as prettily. It was hard to tell, though, so covered in blood in all states of drying, including a fresh dribble caused by his ministrations. Loki offered no resistance as Thor shoved the hem into his pliant hand so it'd be out of the way while he continued.

"I think it looks worse than it is. But I'm not sure, there's…there's a lot of blood here, Lokes." The old nickname slipped through accidentally, but Loki didn't seem to notice, back to staring at his closed eyelids like they held all the answers to the universe. "What happened?"

"Knife," he said flatly without opening his eyes.

"A knife?" He was more startled than he should be, considering little else could cause such a cut, but it still caught him off guard to hear Loki admit it so cavalier. "You made it through three years of prison unscathed and manage to get stabbed within days of getting out?" He was incredulous, he couldn't help it even as he knew Loki would mock him for it.

"What makes you think I made it through unscathed?" He asked instead, peering down at Thor through a tiny crack in his eyelids. He sniffed and let his head fall back as though he was unaware of the cold horror he just shoved down Thor's throat. "Besides," he added, "I've been out for almost a month and, if hadn't been for a punk ass kid trying to take my money, I would have continued on perfectly fine."

Thor didn't even know where to start with that.

"A month?" he choked out. _A month?_ It only cemented the building realization that Loki truly was planning on slipping through their fingers once more, perfectly content to never see his family again.

Instead of allowing himself to bumble around in all that that implied, he reached into the pocket of Loki's hoodie and fished out his wallet, a tattered black cloth thing with a strip of duct tape around it. The same one, if Thor recalled, that he himself had given Loki for his thirteenth birthday.

"No sentimentality," Loki all but snarled. It wasn't just that Loki kept the thing, it was that his brother, unarguably a man at this point, hadn't the time or money to purchase himself a proper leather one.

Thor cracked it open before staring dumbfounded at Loki. "Twenty-two dollars? You got stabbed over twenty-two dollars?" Surely even Loki wasn't so stupid. "Why didn't you just give him the money?" He could barely speak for his disbelief.

"It was the principle of the thing," Loki sniffed. Seeing Thor open his mouth to argue, he sharply reminded, "Aren't you supposed to be doing something about this mess?" He gestured vaguely at his stomach, where blood was beginning to pool along the waistband of his pants and slide sluggishly over his hips onto Thor's chair. Thor's gaze lingered for a moment, even as Loki refused to meet his eyes, unable to believe Loki's pride.

Thor may have been arrogant in his youth – and he had to admit it reared its head now and again in his adult life – but even he could admit his own folly. This was pure foolishness.

With a sigh, he forced himself back to the task at him. With the wet cloth, which he was giving up as a lost cause laundry wise, he tried to gently scrub away as much of the blood as he could. Some it was dry to the point of flaking off, while other parts were sticky spheres, and still others were as easy as wiping up spilled milk. The wound was barely bleeding at all now, apparently having recovered from Thor's separation tactics. The waist of Loki's jeans was undoubtedly stained, but it was barely noticeable against the black fabric. And anything that had slipped below the waistband was not his responsibility.

That step complete, Thor contemplated that bottle of antiseptic, wondering if there was a way to not make it hurt like hell.

"Just do it," Loki whispered. Thor startled and looked up into Loki's piercing gaze. Thor stared, searching for who-even-knows-what in Loki's emerald eyes. A hint of fondness perhaps, or the faintest glimmer of nostalgia for days gone by. But he found nothing, other than quiet insistence, and he eventually turned to the bottle with a sigh. He liberally doused a few cotton balls before turning back to the wound. He hesitated, but resisted the urge to glance back up at Loki, where he'd assuredly find some degree of derision.

"Here we go," he stated instead before plunging forward. Loki inhaled sharply, his already flat stomach flinching away from him while the fingernails on his free hand scratched audibly across the plastic table top. Thor paused for only the briefest of moments, but Loki growled, "Go," through clenched teeth.

He tried to be as quick and thorough as possible as he swept the cotton balls across the wound, wondering if it wouldn't have been better to just douse the whole thing in one go. But it only took a minute or two for him to feel satisfied the wound was sufficiently disinfected. He discarded the pink-stained balls into the trash, giving Loki, who was panting shallowly, a moment to himself.

He paused at the small corkboard that hung above the trashcan, filled with a calendar and various post-it reminders. That life, regular life filled with work and bills and haircuts, seemed so far away from the agonized breathing of his long-lost criminal brother. What would he say when he returned to work on Monday? How could he say nothing? How could he pretend the very core of his being wasn't painfully baffled and irrevocably hurt by Loki's genuine attempts to completely severe himself from them?

"It was revenge."

"What?" Thor asked, startled out of his spiraling anxieties. Loki was hunched over now, the hand not holding his shirt up digging, painfully by the looks of it, into his knee, but he was facing Thor. His eyes seemed to ask Thor to understand this and let it go, as though such a statement was integral to Loki's very being, but Thor was baffled. "What was revenge?" he couldn't help but ask, even as something akin to disappointment subtly soured Loki's expression.

"You asked why I did it. Why else would I be at his house?" He sounded snippy now, clearly displeased that Thor was going to take the inch and force a mile. But he couldn't help it, none of the puzzle pieces added up to Thor.

"Who's house?"

It felt awkward to have such a conversation from ten feet across the room, so Thor quickly moved back to the table and began contemplating the wide array of gauze. How many layers should a wound have? Why did they come in ninety different packs? And how much tape would he need? It seemed like a pretty small roll resting in the center of his large palm.

Loki huffed like it was the most obvious question he'd ever heard. "My father's house, Thor."

That was enough to distract him from idly fingering the different gauze sizes. "You broke into Dad's house?" That didn't make any sense. It couldn't be true. Odin and Loki didn't have the best of relationships but to say that Odin would press charges against his own wayward son? Before Thor could protest, Loki cut him off.

"No, Thor, I broke into _my father's_ house, not Odin's."

"You mean-"

"My real father, Thor, Laufey. I finally tracked him down. Took long enough, he's a slippery bastard."

Thor could only stare. Loki had broken into…his birth family's house? All of this was part of some soul-searching need to belong? Loki had really distanced himself so far from them that he felt that these people - this Laufey, an essential stranger who had apparently called the police on his own son – they were more family to Loki than Odin, Frigga, and Thor? Had it all truly counted for nothing in Loki's eyes? They were replaceable, just like that?

"Wait," Loki demanded, as though he had any right to be confused right now, "are you saying you didn't know? Odin never told you?"

"Told me?" he barely managed to ask, so swept away by the tidal wave of information.

"That it was Laufey's house I went to?"

"He…knew?"

"Of course, Thor, he was still technically my guardian. The police told him everything."

Of the massive mess Loki's arrest had been, Thor had always been grateful that Loki had choose to commit his crime just a few weeks shy of eighteen, making him legally a minor and a notification of the parents required. He'd been tried as an adult, but not before his parents were called.

So it made sense that Odin knew. The question was why hadn't he told Thor? Did Frigga know?

Thor glanced back up to Loki, expecting to find the same confusion mirrored back at him. But it was something much worse, something nearly wicked, on Loki's face. A savage smirk and that telltale spark of mirth and misfortune in his eyes.

"Loki?" he asked warily, feeling as though he'd missed a step while going downstairs. He knew that look well, but he didn't know why it was there now. He only knew he needed to tread carefully.

"How's it feel, Thor? To realize everyone knew something but you and they chose to let you stumble on blindly, all the while unknowingly playing the fool?"

It felt…profoundly stupid. Like the whole world was playing a cruel, cruel joke. Did they think he couldn't handle the truth? Was Odin worried it'd lessen or greaten Loki in Thor's eyes?

The viciously satisfied gleam in Loki's previously dead eyes told Thor all he needed to know. Loki believed, from the bottom of his heart, that everyone but himself had known he'd been adopted and that they had just been humoring him, letting him run around mimicking a happy reality.

This – this soul-crushing realization that _everything_ you thought was wrong – this was what Loki felt every day. This was what had driven him out of their home all those years ago. This was what fueled an apparent obsession with tracking down his real family, bringing him to a life forever marked by criminality.

"Yes," Loki hissed, looking positively pleased as Thor crumbled before him. Seemingly running on satisfied hatred, Loki grabbed a package of gauze and tore it open with his teeth. While Thor sat numbly before him, he expertly spread the soft white material and taped it to his stomach with six even strips of medical tape.

Thor watched, some combination of wanting to be alone to lick his wounds coupled with the awareness he may never again see the man he'd once have taken a bullet for, as Loki painstakingly got to his feet.

"Well, it's been fun, but let's not do this again, okay?" Loki grinned, not his hey-brother-what-a-wild-adventure-that-was grin, but the I-wish-you-only-pain-and-misfortune one, and slowly moved from leaning on the table to standing upright. For a moment, Loki stood still, staring down at Thor's hunched form in the chair opposite, before offering a small huff and turning to shuffle towards the door.

Walking clearly hurt and a small part of Thor wondered how far he had to go to home. Did he have a home? Did he want some painkillers?

But the only thing he could make come out of his mouth, as he was numbly filled with a rising panic, was, "Why revenge?"

Loki stopped, one hand on the doorjamb of the kitchen and one hand on the handle of the front door across the tiny entryway. "What?" he asked eventually without turning around.

"You said you went to Laufey's house for revenge. For what? Giving you up?"

"No," Loki said softly, head bowing forward slightly. "I know why I was given up. Most babies who're a product of rape are." He released the doorjamb and pulled the front door open. The oppressive silence of the dark night spilled in. "No," he continued in a whisper, "I went for _her_. Because she never got a chance to."

And then Thor's brother disappeared into the night with only the soft _thunk_ of the door closing behind him.

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 **Warning for self-loathing, rape, and some violent thoughts.**

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	2. Chapter 2

**I'm less thrilled with this than the last section, but that could just be because I like writing Loki's dialogue so much! This is part sequel/part epilogue. Warnings for some bad language.**

 **Thank you to everyone who followed/favorited/commented!**

* * *

Thor did the only thing he could think to do: call his mother. He knew it was a few hours shy of sunrise, but he also knew Frigga would forgive him when he told her why he was calling.

She did.

She cried in a way Thor had never heard before, in a way no child should ever hear their parent cry. It was quiet, but heart-wrenching and spoke of a bone-deep agony. Even through the poor connection it echoed off Thor's empty walls. His apartment had never seemed smaller than it did in that moment.

"Oh, my poor baby," she whispered over and over again. Thor didn't know if she meant him or Loki or both.

They stayed that way, two sorrowful souls crying alone together at four in the morning, for almost twenty minutes.

When the first traces of anger slipped into his blood, Thor welcomed them like old friends. Pain this raw was never meant to be felt, he was sure, and when that first hint of anger knocked on his gates, he threw them open and let it flood him.

It was anger the likes of which he hadn't seen in years. Anger at Loki for causing all of this, for flying into his life once more only to wreck everything and vanish once more into the night. Anger at his parents for lying to them both. Anger at strangers he'd never met, at Laufey, at a mugger, at the world for fucking them over time and time again.

But mostly, anger at himself. For caring too much. For not caring enough. For not stopping it all. For letting Loki in enough to make it hurt and for letting Loki get away. How could he simultaneously want so badly for his brother to have never existed and to have never left?

 **"** **Mom," he croaked because he was slipping down fast.**

"Do you want to come over?" she eventually asked, because she was the sort of mother who was willing to get up and comfort him at this hour without a second of hesitation. She was the best sort of mother.

"Can you put Dad on the phone for a moment?" he asked instead, needing to ask a few prime questions before he could face the man in person. _Just tell me why._ _Why all the lies?_

"He can't come to the phone right now, sweetie." Of course not, Thor thought viciously, of course Odin was the sort of father who couldn't be bothered to get out of bed when one son was on the verge of a meltdown and the other had just been seen for the first time in years. But Frigga continued hesitantly, "He's staying at a motel tonight."

"What? Why?" It was enough to freeze his thoughts in place.

Did Loki stop over there first? What if there was no mugger and instead it was a family argument that got out of hand? Had he been played yet again, everyone sitting around waiting for his call?

"We had an argument. It's nothing serious, darling, we're just taking a little break right now." Her voice was soft, trying to comfort him without lying. This is my burden to bear, that voice said.

Perhaps Loki wasn't involved. Perhaps he'd told the truth for once.

But that meant his perfect family was falling apart in yet another way. Through all the crap they'd weathered with Loki's adoption, Thor had never once doubted his parent's devotion to one another. But even that, even that love which Thor had held as the most genuine feeling two people could feel, even that was a sham. How long had Thor been the fool?

Perhaps Loki was more right than Thor had ever thought possible.

"Thor, it's just a little break, really. It's nothing serious, okay? You don't need to worry about it."

"Okay, Mom," he finally offered, disheartened. From where he was sitting, at the base of the kitchen wall under the mounted phone set, he pulled his knees up and let his chin drop onto them. The cold from the floor was climbing up his legs, but he couldn't move, not when the world was so big and unfamiliar a place.

She went on, gentle and cheerful as always. "Are you coming over, then? You know your room is always ready if you want it."

"No that's alright," he said, thinking of his large childhood house devoid of half of the people who made it home. "Thanks, though. Good-night."

"Thor…" Her tone was worried in a way that normally urged Thor to reassure her, but his chest hurt and his mind was too overwhelmed.

"Good-night, Mom," he offered before hanging up, well aware he sounded just shy of dead.

There was simply nothing left, Thor concluded as he wearily forced his legs up the stairs, but to go to bed.

He remained in bed until well past noon, but it was Sunday so no one needed to know. His thoughts continuously returned to Loki. The small winces and hisses of pain, they aroused such a level of familiar protectiveness and an urge to make it better that Thor almost felt like a kid again. All the childhood promises of protection against bullies and monsters and bad things. Loki had made it clear shortly into his teens that such thoughts were no longer wanted and would be met with only the sharpest of rebuttals. But it'd been so long since Thor had felt that way about anyone.

He hated to admit it, but it felt nice to feel needed. To know that someone was depending on him for help, even if it was begrudging.

But Loki's troubles clearly ran deeper than Thor had ever expected. And rather than having found freedom in running away, Loki had apparently allowing himself to dig deeper into the depravity of humanity.

He never was good at letting go.

Thor had never much believed in fate, but if ever there was someone destined for chaos in life, surely it was a child borne out of such violence. He couldn't even begin to fathom what had gone through Loki's mind when he went in search of his real family, perhaps hoping for a loving middle-class family that be overjoyed at his return, only to find a dead woman who'd rued his existence and a cold monster. But why had he gone after Laufey? ' _For her'_ he'd said, but why? She was a virtual stranger. Did he see himself in the woman? Did he see Laufey as the cause of all wrong in his life?

But then why, Thor suddenly realized, did he let Laufey live? Breaking and entering had been the charges. Not assault. Not attempted murder.

Maybe it wasn't revenge that drove Loki there, even if he'd convinced himself that it was so. Maybe it was the same reason Thor wanted to speak to his own father: to understand.

It took very little research to find a name.

Farbauti.

Loki's birth mother. Raped at twenty-three, dead by her own hand a year later, shortly after delivering. A refusal to testify against Laufey resulted in the man serving only ninety days.

Thor tried to picture himself as Loki, recently severed from his own family, feeling betrayed and alone, reading this very same information. How would he feel? How would he act?

It made his head spin. There was nothing, _nothing_ Thor wouldn't give to go back a few years and take back that stupid "so what". To handle it differently, to change it all.

But, he thought as he stared up at the golden 7 placed in the center of the door, there was no going back, only going forward.

The man that opened the door was an inch or two shorter than Thor. He was portly and the eyes that stared out of his bald head showed their age. He had a tattoo, some swirling, Celtic style pattern that swirled around his neck and along the sides of his head. More ink, a deep black color, peeked out from under the collar and sleeves of his stained grey t-shirt. He was wearing blue flannel pants as only the down and out did at three in the afternoon.

It had taken less work than he'd anticipated to track down Laufey. The newspaper article about the home invasion from three years ago, still buried in the bottom of Thor's desk drawer, had a picture of Laufey standing in front of his door, the golden 7 gleaming just behind his head. The town listed in the article wasn't far away and it only took twenty minutes of driving around to find a building that matched the picture.

"Erm, hello, sir. Sorry to bother you, but I'm…" The brother of the man who broke into your house? Your son's brother? A random nobody?

The man's untrimmed eyebrow jumped up in impatience. "I think you have the wrong address," he said, showing off two rows of chalky yellow teeth. His bulk began to disappear into the darkness behind him.

"No!" Thor shouted as the door started to close. "Please, I need to talk to you!" Laufey peered out at him from the two inch crack left in the door.

"Why?"

"It's about…about your son? Loki?"

It was by some miracle of the gods that Thor managed to talk his way onto the man's admittedly shifty couch because it certainly wasn't any gift with words of Thor's. He tried to hold still as each shift of his weight caused a painful sounding creak from the plastic couch covering that did nothing for the garish yellow floral pattern underneath.

"Did he say why he was here?" Thor asked gently. Laufey had settled himself in a recliner opposite him, beer – which was not offered to Thor – in hand, and feet propped up.

"Whadaya think? Stark raving lunatic, breaking in here in the middle of fucking night, screaming about some bitch." He took a sip from the white can, with just a bit of blue ribbon showing for Thor to know what sort of cheap drainage fluid the man was using to poison himself.

A lot of revelations had shaken Thor's world in the last twenty-four hours, but he was confident that he knew Loki's behavior, if not always his motivations. And that description sounded like some cockeyed bullshit made up for the media.

"But that's not how it really was, sir, was it?"

Mind games and manipulation, that was Loki's game. Thor preferred his words straightforward and reflective of the truth. No ulterior motives, just the truth. But he'd seen Loki's notoriously sharp wit and verbal eviscerations enough times to know a thing or two. He kept his stare level, but not so intimidating that the man forced him to leave. He met the man's squinty eyes and forced himself not to squirm because this was Loki they were talking about and Thor needed _someone_ to tell him the damn truth.

"That's how it was if that's how I say it was," he garbled out, aiming for a sneer and pulling off something between first colonoscopy and virginal backroom lap dances.

"What did he want to know?"

The man shoved himself to his feet and let his index finger wag about in agitation. "Now who the hell are you to come here, 'cusing me of things, and asking all these damned questions?"

"I'm from the parole board, I told you. I'm just here to find out what really happened that night. Lo-Mr. Odinson has proved to be rather close-lipped about the matter."

The man, trying so hard to be anything but weak, glared at Thor's open face for a moment or two more before dropping back into his chair as if his strings had been cut. "Nah, it wasn't like that. I come downstairs and the fuckers sitting on my couch, drinking a glass of water like it's his fucking castle. I tell him to get out or I'll call the cops and he just makes some comment about the goddamn couch, like he broke in to talk some fucking interior decorating."

"A bad comment about…about this couch?" Thor asked as neutrally as he could while gesturing vaguely at the yellow abomination beneath him. The squinty eyes turned to near slits as Laufey glared harder. "Then what?" Thor asked after clearing his throat, "I mean, what did he say exactly?"

"It was stupid stuff mostly. Why'd I do that to his mother – like I know who the hell he's talking about – and why'd I walk away from him. Hell, I didn't even know I had a damn son until he broke into my fucking house."

To picture Loki's face, the utter devastation, after running from the only family he'd ever known in desperate hope for something better and finding…this? The hollowed out agony in having your last wretched hope crushed like a spider under a shoe, remorseless and uncaring.

 _But you were never in need of a family,_ Thor cried out as he thought about the lost little boy his brother had become, too prideful to go back but too hurt to go forward.

"He started waving some old newspaper clipping at me. Apparently the woman, his mother I guess, killed herself afterwards. But I didn't know. I was young, you know? Stupid and drunk. It was a mistake, I'll give you that. But I'll tell you the same thing I told that whack job: What happened afterwards, that wasn't my fault. I'm sorry the bitch offed herself and left him for dead, but it ain't my fault."

"Is…is that all? That Loki did?"

Laufey peered at him curiously.

"That's just what he said. 'Is that all?' He just kept screaming it over and over, waving around this dinky little knife. I don't know what the kid was looking for, but I didn't have it." The bald head dropped into his hands and he rubbed at the skin for a moment before looking up. "By the end, he was…you know, crying and stuff. And I said 'Boy, this is my last warning. You get out of this house right now or I'm calling the cops. And he sorta just stood there. I knew he wasn't going to stick me or nothing, but a man has his pride, you know? I hadda call them."

Thor couldn't remember the exact words his father had used when he called Thor that night all those years ago, but things like 'gone off the deep end', 'smashed his way in', and 'some poor elderly man's house' had been tossed around. This was not at all what Thor had imagined. As much as his mind raged against it, he could think of no other reason for the misleading other than to turn him against his brother.

Perhaps Odin had thought it best that Thor distance himself from Loki's influence. Perhaps he thought, foolishly and egregiously, that Thor would _give up_ if he thought Loki's crime was sufficiently heinous.

But Thor hadn't given up. Not on Loki, not ever. And that had brought him here, to the completed puzzle picture. It had brought him to a pathetic old man, alone and insufficient and aware of it. Maybe that wasn't so far from Odin himself, trying to preserve the integrity of his well-to-do family by filtering their exposures, shaping their lives like playthings.

Carefully, but not without making a good deal of plastic creak, Thor extracted himself from the couch. "Thank you for your time," he mumbled softly, not too far gone to remember his manners. Laufey, head in hands once more, nodded without looking up. "Okay then," Thor whispered to himself. His hands felt big and awkward and he wished he had brought something to carry. An empty clipboard even, anything.

He shuffled to the door, full of warring emotions. The handle felt greasy under his hand, but he paid it little mind until the man spoke up behind him, forcing him to freeze and let the feeling sink in.

"If it helps…I told 'em, you know, that he was my son and stuff. That his mother died. That he was just a confused kid. I tried to help him get off easy as he could."

"Yeah," Thor lied numbly, as he pulled the door all the way open and stepped into the unfitting sunlight, "that helps."

He sat in his car and, in the brutally cheerfully sunlight of a blue sky, cried at the bitter agonies unfolding around him. How could he not even know his own family? Not even a little? Even Frigga's comfort felt too far away to help. He didn't know anymore who knew what or said what, but his life had changed most significantly in the last twenty four hours.

It took Thor much, much longer than it should to notice. Life limped on, as it was prone to doing. He went to the office, chatting with friends, flirted with the new secretary, but it all felt so hollow.

To come home at night and face his empty house and his empty kitchen that for one night had held life and pain and love and now was full of nothing – it was a hard burden to bear.

Odin moved back in with Frigga, so Thor changed their plans and had Frigga come to his place for their monthly meals instead. Those nights his kitchen was filled with laughter and love and oregano and it felt good, even if it was temporary and maybe not what it used to be.

It was close enough.

Eventually he was bound to notice. He lived alone so it certainly wasn't some passive aggressive roommate eating his favorite cereal and stealing Band-Aids. It wasn't much and it was hard to notice a missing bowl or two of cereal.

Then Thor dropped a plate and needed a Band-Aid and they were under the sink where they were supposed to be, but there was only two left and he knew he wasn't imagining it.

Disturbing implications about his home security aside, Thor learned two things.

One: No matter what he said, Loki was human and as such, was a creature of habit. And even when he wasn't trying to, Thor was offering all the comfort and protection big brothers were supposed to in bowls of cereal, Band-Aids, and a little temporary safety. He wished Loki felt more comfortable staying there permanently – Thor didn't know if he even had a proper place to stay – but he would take what he could. He knew a peace offering when he saw one, even if it was passive aggressive and a tad bit illegal.

Two: Self-applied Band-Aids and cereal from your childhood only go so far in treating wounds. If Loki was capable of getting in and out without being seen or disturbing Thor, then he had to have wanted to be seen that night with the mugging. Maybe it was too much for him to handle on his own, but maybe, maybe he need a little patching up of the emotional kind.

All in all, it was good news.

On the way home from work the next day, Thor took a little detour and made one stop and purchased one item. That evening, Thor left his little present out, a prepaid cellphone loaded up with sixty minutes and his phone number, topped with a sticky note that said _'Call Me'._

It stayed there, on the counter, next to the displayed cereal box, for quite a while and Thor began to think he really was imagining it all along. Wishful thinking and all that.

But one day, he came home from work and the phone was gone.

And then one day, nearly seven months later, Thor got a call.

* * *

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